Yes, they are cheaply made. Apple charges more for their Media Players than most companies charge for their PDAs. All an MP3 player is, is a hard drive with a color screen, nothing more than that.

that doesn't nessecarily mean that the construction and design is cheap, the products used within the ipod could be of top quality, the frailty of ipods cannot be blamed on the amount of parts used to construct it.

Umm, yeah. You basically added more to what I said, othe than your opinion on them being cheaply made.

Sure, I guess they're cheaply made considering they usually get the parts for a really cheap price. Look at the PS3 for example. The Blu-Ray drive costs about $320 and the RSX GPU costs about $73 to make...get what I mean? But yeah, Apple charges a ridiculous price for what the iPod offers. It's an effective marketing strategy though. Charge them tons for a basic player, and force them to buy retarded accessories that cost even more.

Umm, yeah. You basically added more to what I said, othe than your opinion on them being cheaply made.

Sure, I guess they're cheaply made considering they usually get the parts for a really cheap price. Look at the PS3 for example. The Blu-Ray drive costs about $320 and the RSX GPU costs about $73 to make...get what I mean? But yeah, Apple charges a ridiculous price for what the iPod offers. It's an effective marketing strategy though. Charge them tons for a basic player, and force them to buy retarded accessories that cost even more.

An MP3 player should do what it says on the tin, and do it well. This means it must have a good music playback system with an intuitive control scheme, and layout.

Okay, so it just about passes on the layout, and control scheme (though going round in circles to go up and down in menus?...)

The part that it fails on is the most important aspect. Audio reproduction.
Its cheap!
I have a Creative (not as good as Iaudio mind) and the audio blows the Ipod away. Why? Because the Creative has a better audio driver/sound chip obviously, and more options.

The Ipod doesn't even have a custom EQ for heavens sake... instead, they give you about 30 or so custom ones that they have just thrown on there, when they could have thought "hmm, lets give the user a real choice and let them create their own". So we already know, Ipods aren't for the real audio lovers out there!

Iaudio win over Creative though due to the slightly better audio reproduction, and better bass enhancement features that really do improve music.

But yeah, fashion and electronics isn't something to get into. Its fashion with music that brought us these ridiculous boy bands, etc. So if your into fashioned music that has suddenly come up, the Ipods for you.

in my opinion they are.. yes, the sound quality on my creative zen sleek is alot better, but the zen is alot weaker than the ipod. the build quality and reliability on the ipod (mine at least..) is excellent, mine has been dropped literally hundreds of times, and a couple of times from 6ft, or over onto cobbled streets (i do weird things when im drunk in egypt..), and the only damage i have is a cracked screen. it works perfectly fine, and makes the noises its supposed to.. another reason why i was very impressed with the ipod was how well it coped with being dropped in a lake (twice). no damage whatsoever to the ipod there, i just put it in the airing cupboard for a couple of days, and it works fine..

after all the abuse i have given the ipod, i can defiatley say that they are well built.. either that, or i have got a super strong ipod (very unlikely IMO). yes, they are expensive.. but for what you get, i feel its well worth it..

as i said above, the creative zen sleek i have got has alot better sound quality, but tbh, i dont really care too much about sound quality, as long as i can hear it, im not too bothered.. the ipod is perfectly fine sound quality for me..

another thing is.. they wouldnt be this redicously popular if they were that poorly made.. if i rember correctly, there was a batch of nano's with dodgy screens, but they resolved this, and they have stronger screens now.. i rember reading something like that before..

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'I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.'

Do you believe that as a personal opinion, or are saying that is a fact?

Mark, the reason why iPods are popular isn't because they're manufactured well. It's all in the design, which is something Apple definately can do. If you look at Apple's designs for...well anything, they're all simple, sleek and usually minimalistic.

meh, i think they look great AND are manufactured well, even though i bought it, i still think that the creative is a lil ugly..

alvino, there is no 'facts' as to which is better, it all comes down to personal opinion.. personally, i have a creative and an ipod, i prefer the ipod overall for looks etc.. but i still use both that and the creative..

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'I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.'